I'm not sure why you want AOC to say she loves this country. Maybe she's said that already? When expressing what she most liked about Biden's speech you think she should have included an, "Oh by the way I love my country?" Perhaps the direction her life has taken and what she stands for are testimony to her love of the US, in spite of an error in judgement once in a while.
I want Democrats to embrace patriotism, otherwise we leave it to angry racists and white supremacists and cheap politicians who wrap themselves in the flag. Patriotism is a refuge for many scoundrels. We need to make it clear that we love this land and that is why we're critical of it when it falls short of its promise. Otherwise we leave the field open for the Florida Orange. The Ukrainians' love of country is a phenomenon of our time. Let's respond to it.
I agree but I do think that AOC is a great example of representing the needs of individuals, and not the best example of a representative who is not a patriot. She does not seem bought and sold yet as are most of our politicians. Like Bernie if you look at what she stands for and listen to what she says, she is a remarkable example of a true patriot.
Really? I totally agree with GK and have been bemoaning the left's failure to grab the flag back for years now. We have developed an undeserved rep for hating America and I want us to beef up that "God bless America" message. (Yeah, I think we need to embrace the creator, too, but maybe some consider that a step too far.)
To me, I'd rather go further than that. The former president fanned the flames of racial prejudice. What if we initiated a new "ReConstruction Era?" If we happen to be in the white majority, it would be a good idea to engage in positive conversations with those who have been targeted - African Americans, Hispanics, Immigrants, etc. - as much as we can.
I think there's a lot of uncertainty today among those in minorities as to where they stand. They're frequently hesitant to bring the subject up, so their shields go up. "This is a white person, part of the majority. I've got to be careful how I handle this," they think to themselves.
Just yesterday, I began to talk with Rod (Rodrigo). His English was perfect - he'd obviously been living in the US since elementary school, at least. And yet - the way he pronounced his "eees" had the lilt of Spanish to me. Once we'd covered the main topic, I asked him if Spanish was his native tongue. I explained that I had had a farm in California, and muchos buenos amigos there. How he smiled! Immediately he loosened up. I found my Spanish was a little rusty - I understood him but my replies were sort of "canned" - the things you learn in Spanish 101. Still, I could tell I had "made his day" by valuing the "hidden" side of his makeup.
I've noticed a lot more African American truck drivers on the road these days, too. It seems as if trucking is more important these pandemic days. It could also be that the pressures are taking their toll and the regular crew may be feeling burn-out. Perhaps truck-driving schools are more willing to accept women and minority applicants now.
Whatever the reason, when I'm at a filling station and see "atypical" truckers, I say "Hi" to them, chat for a bit, and end by saying "Thanks for your service." Somehow, when they climb back into the cab, they tend to do so with more aplomb, more pride.
To me, in part, it's an exercise in putting myself in their shoes. I guess, as a woman, I know a lot more about "being ignored" or mentally being "discounted", than the average white, middle class American male would have experienced.
In these days, especially if we happen to be white, we might be doing a public service by trying to recognize someone "different" as a fellow human being. If many of us could do that at least once a day, think of what a blow we'd be giving to the impression that "All whites are racists, misogynists, and anti-immigrant "America-Firsters" !
It's one thing to disparage prejudiced folks in the cozy company of "Our Kind." But that deep dividing line isn't going to disappear until we can create an alternate reality by our own actions!
As the right and Congressional Republicans swap their flag lapel pins for AR15 pins progressives are reclaiming the flag. Criticizing the country you love for what it needs to work on is, in my humble opinion, the most sincere form of patriotism. As the Bible says “Who the Lord loves he chastens”. AOC lives her patriotism.
"U - Krai" in Russian actually means "At the Border." Katherine the Great was the original invader (When Catherine the Great Invaded the Crimea and Put the Rest of the World on Edge - The Russian czarina attempted to show the West she was an Enlightened despot, her policies said otherwise - Carolyn Harris Smithsonian Magazine - March 4, 2014) Besides giving Russia an all-weather port to the south, The Ukraine offered a much longer growing season than Siberia. Also, it has soil that would make any agronomist salivate! It has nice, black soil due to a rich humus content. It was too far south to suffer from continental glaciation - hence the fields are free from rocks! No picturesque stone fences such as Robert Frost might write about. Just fields, fields,
and more fields! During Soviet times, the communes set aside some plots for evergreen forests as a source for local timber. The rural dwellers enjoy going into the woods to collect mushrooms and berries, which they string up and dry strands of these "vitamins from the wilds" during the winter months.
I'm pretty sure the original residents enjoyed their relatively warm weather and long growing seasons, throughout time. At the same time, when you're sitting on some property thatis pretty close to The Garden of Eden, or Paradise, they've had to pay for their prosperity by being periodically invaded,
There's a young man in the Slavic Pentecostal Church near us who is a genetic testament to The Ukraine's history of invasion. His blonde hair speaks to the Norsemen who followed the rivers down to their area. His truly Asian eyes speak of Rapes during the invasions of Ghengus Khan. His Slavic Christianity reflects the Orthodox monks coming north from Greece, overlain by a fundamentalist Chicago-trained Protestant missionary.
You could say that the Ukraine is at at a Crossroads of the Continent - a window to the European World. It's too bad that some folks can't just let them be themselves!
Deny that you're an Evangelical all you want. Still, loving AOC is the sugar that watching old men decide borders and primp in front of mobs tolerable in an age and country that allows them to foul the media. AND: The press is on it's last legs because soulless "Good Businessmen" put it there, ...There ,I can ramble too.
A great piece, Garrison. And I don't see a single comment with which I disagree.
But allow me a few comments.
Reality wins out sooner or later. It might take a long time and sometimes it is hard to predict when, but at some point, reality will be faced.
Putin is head of a country whose economy is in decline and who cannot afford the big army which he has and which he needs to invade his neighbors. He does have nuclear bombs but if he uses them, that might result in his death. Putin wants what Saddam Hussein wanted -- that is to stay alive and stay in power plus become a modern-day czar ruling a czarist empire. There is not a retirement plan for Putin just like there was not a retirement plan for Stalin. Retirement for Putin would be hazardous to his health.
President Kelensky shows how much difference one person can make. With someone else as President, Putin might well have attacked, and the Ukrainians might have surrended and let it go at that. But Kelensky stepped forward and gave leadership to the feelings of the Ukrainian people and started handing out rifles and here we are. The Russian army is bogged down.
The Democrats in this country need a Kelensky. A good communicator who can step forward and give a positive explanation of what they believe and support. Too often when the right wing propaganda machine starts going, the Democrats in this country head for the hills or become mute.
I have a lot of respect for real, genuine evangelicals. Unfortunately, religion and politics nowadays is populated by a good many con men and grifters. It always pays to have a good BS detector.
Best wishes Garrison and best wishes to one an all.
Way to go, Great, Revered Host! I could be wrong, but it seems to me that many of our Public Heroes have "Rags to Riches" origin stories.
If you're born at the top, where do you go from there? Here in New York State, "Rockefeller" is a common governor's last name, thanks to rich papa John D. and Standard Oil Company. The Rockefeller leaders did well enough, for the most part. One of them, Nelson A, spent some time in Tibet. As a result, we have state capitol office buildings that look like Lhasa. They're definitely extraordinary in terms of general state capitol architectural complexes. Nelson was also responsible for improving the quality of rural highways, with the intent of enabling New York State dairy products to flow freely into New York City and environs. As far as I'm aware, the Rockefeller "dynasty" served New York State residents well. Silver-Spoon kids can be respectable.
On the other hand, what if you're born with a series of social roadblocks challenging you? The fact that it takes more grit and persistence to get ahead sometimes results in rising much higher than anyone would have expected of "someone in your class.". There's Jim Thorpe, a Sauk and Fox Native American, won the decathlon and pentathlon gold medals at the 1912 Olympics. Who would have expected a backwoods Pennsylvania boy to do that? Wilma Rudolph overcame polio to win races at the 1960 Olympics. Sammy Davis Junior, was an African American with an overstressed heart due to his childhood dancing in his father's vaudeville act. He went on to become a mainstream actor and comedian despite facing severe prejudices. You can read about it in his autobiography, "Yes, I Can!" Harry Bellefonte was born in Harlem, of Jamaican ancestry, with a chef and a housekeeper as parents. He grew up in Jamaica, served in World War II, and was working as a janitor's assistant when he received 2 tickets to see the American Negro Theater. His ambition carried him on from there. (Wikipedia)
The list goes on. Childhoods spent in relative poverty can act as significant motivators. Our Talented Host's autobiography is rich with the possible "advantages" of growing up impecuniously! Personally, as a librarian, I was especially impressed wit the distance he would ride his bicycle to visit the Minneapolis Public Library!
Listening to his anecdotes can be a great advertisement for "The advantages of growing up poor!" I can still picture him, in his hand-me-down shirt with darts in it and pants with a zipper on the left side, trying to make jokes with his friends in the school lunchroom. "What do you say when you're wearing your sister's out-grown clothes?" Many of us have never been in a similar situation. Necessity, though, surely helped him to find social acceptance through humor!
To me, Our Humorous Host is a great spokesperson for breaking down barriers caused by poverty, or educational or social class. Long Live His Tales, and Long Live the Author!
I usually like your take on things. You sound like an old man here, set in his ways. Nationalism is the way, really? I've waited all of my life for the feminine to finally upturn what Patriarchy has destroyed. If we are to survive, maybe old white men could just put a pin in it for a while unless you chose to evolve. While so many of us have been in the back seat for decades, centuries, you were put in the back seat and your "visibility" cloak just can't conceal your need for disability visibility . All the worlds' a stage..................with some taking up more than their share
No, I am more progressive in my views than most and we are in the midst of a paradigm shift from control over to a more authentic way of being.. the only way to salvage whatever is left of anything worth living for. Like Nature for instance. I see the Left as cultish as the right. I don't join any group. For example,I didn't get the vaccine (instead I isolated)so the mentality of the group joiners is that I am now a Trump supporter, that pus from the bloated boil of patriarchy- I can't take enough showers, nor do I have enough advil. If we cannot listen but instead join those who believe EVERYTHING this particular group believes, waging war on the worst side, it promotes more war. I align up and down, not left/right. I don't love America, we are incredibly immature as a nation. I love life and seek to restore what is most precious to me.... this planet and the life contained and supported by it which is being destroyed while we argue. Guy behind me bought a house, cut down a 100 year old healthy mother tree because it might fall one day and hurt his precious plastic shed and he hung his american flag off the deck which I don't want to look at. Our ego needs some work. people are hurting and so many have NO voice while the folks who love the stage continue to hog it. where's my cane... BTW.... I watched your show for years and loved it.
This is a political comment, so I have to say that it sounds like you may be forgetting that you're talking here mostly to people who are likely to be voting on the same political side as you in general elections. I'm afraid that comments like yours can tend to nudge people to the right, politically. Fox News is betting on it--they love to talk about wokeness and AOC hating America. Let's face it, the nationalist authoritarians of the GO-QAnon-P have their sights set on conservative immigrants, whom Democrats thought they had in the bag. The rest of us, those who care about democracy, need to focus on winning elections to avoid something even worse than the disastrous Orangina 45 Administration.
Excellent article Garrison...as someone who has a few very close US friends I fret and worry daily over your countries travails and have done for decades. However as a friend of Larry Sanders, the elder brother of Bernie, who lives nearby me in Oxford, I can't help but be an AOC fan.
Even so I do concur with your sentiment that it wouldn't hurt her to once in a while convey her allegiance to the US although when you consider the constant death threats she has to endure its not too hard to imagine her reluctance...
I'm sure she is very grateful inside but often we are very hard on those that we love the most and as an old Socialist Democrat myself even though I love my country dearly and would fight an invader to the death for it's existence I'm deeply unhappy with what it has become under our clown Boris and the worst Government since imagination.
So I also get her reluctance to wear it on her sleeve as I don't for my country presently.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading Boomtown next year as it's being sent to my chum in San Fran for when we meet up in April 23 for our 3 week tour of all the major music recording studios down South, can't wait, despite it's ghastly political situation I still love the US of A !
Eveything about your columns was spot-on except for your AOC rant - what is it about old guys jealous of bright attractive young women? - speaking as an old 63-yrold dual-Canuck-US woman!
A great piece!
Brilliant direction and insights and all the more supports today's poem by Louis Nelson that tops today's Writers Almanac. Thank you, GK!
Amen!
I'm not sure why you want AOC to say she loves this country. Maybe she's said that already? When expressing what she most liked about Biden's speech you think she should have included an, "Oh by the way I love my country?" Perhaps the direction her life has taken and what she stands for are testimony to her love of the US, in spite of an error in judgement once in a while.
I want Democrats to embrace patriotism, otherwise we leave it to angry racists and white supremacists and cheap politicians who wrap themselves in the flag. Patriotism is a refuge for many scoundrels. We need to make it clear that we love this land and that is why we're critical of it when it falls short of its promise. Otherwise we leave the field open for the Florida Orange. The Ukrainians' love of country is a phenomenon of our time. Let's respond to it.
I agree but I do think that AOC is a great example of representing the needs of individuals, and not the best example of a representative who is not a patriot. She does not seem bought and sold yet as are most of our politicians. Like Bernie if you look at what she stands for and listen to what she says, she is a remarkable example of a true patriot.
I just don't underrstand the aversion on the left to saying, "This is a great country and I love it." What does that cost you?
So nice to have this chat. I was unaware of any aversion of the left saying that. I'll take your word for it and suggest we all beat the drum more.
Really? I totally agree with GK and have been bemoaning the left's failure to grab the flag back for years now. We have developed an undeserved rep for hating America and I want us to beef up that "God bless America" message. (Yeah, I think we need to embrace the creator, too, but maybe some consider that a step too far.)
To me, I'd rather go further than that. The former president fanned the flames of racial prejudice. What if we initiated a new "ReConstruction Era?" If we happen to be in the white majority, it would be a good idea to engage in positive conversations with those who have been targeted - African Americans, Hispanics, Immigrants, etc. - as much as we can.
I think there's a lot of uncertainty today among those in minorities as to where they stand. They're frequently hesitant to bring the subject up, so their shields go up. "This is a white person, part of the majority. I've got to be careful how I handle this," they think to themselves.
Just yesterday, I began to talk with Rod (Rodrigo). His English was perfect - he'd obviously been living in the US since elementary school, at least. And yet - the way he pronounced his "eees" had the lilt of Spanish to me. Once we'd covered the main topic, I asked him if Spanish was his native tongue. I explained that I had had a farm in California, and muchos buenos amigos there. How he smiled! Immediately he loosened up. I found my Spanish was a little rusty - I understood him but my replies were sort of "canned" - the things you learn in Spanish 101. Still, I could tell I had "made his day" by valuing the "hidden" side of his makeup.
I've noticed a lot more African American truck drivers on the road these days, too. It seems as if trucking is more important these pandemic days. It could also be that the pressures are taking their toll and the regular crew may be feeling burn-out. Perhaps truck-driving schools are more willing to accept women and minority applicants now.
Whatever the reason, when I'm at a filling station and see "atypical" truckers, I say "Hi" to them, chat for a bit, and end by saying "Thanks for your service." Somehow, when they climb back into the cab, they tend to do so with more aplomb, more pride.
To me, in part, it's an exercise in putting myself in their shoes. I guess, as a woman, I know a lot more about "being ignored" or mentally being "discounted", than the average white, middle class American male would have experienced.
In these days, especially if we happen to be white, we might be doing a public service by trying to recognize someone "different" as a fellow human being. If many of us could do that at least once a day, think of what a blow we'd be giving to the impression that "All whites are racists, misogynists, and anti-immigrant "America-Firsters" !
It's one thing to disparage prejudiced folks in the cozy company of "Our Kind." But that deep dividing line isn't going to disappear until we can create an alternate reality by our own actions!
One Nation, Under God, INDIVISIBLE!
As the right and Congressional Republicans swap their flag lapel pins for AR15 pins progressives are reclaiming the flag. Criticizing the country you love for what it needs to work on is, in my humble opinion, the most sincere form of patriotism. As the Bible says “Who the Lord loves he chastens”. AOC lives her patriotism.
"U - Krai" in Russian actually means "At the Border." Katherine the Great was the original invader (When Catherine the Great Invaded the Crimea and Put the Rest of the World on Edge - The Russian czarina attempted to show the West she was an Enlightened despot, her policies said otherwise - Carolyn Harris Smithsonian Magazine - March 4, 2014) Besides giving Russia an all-weather port to the south, The Ukraine offered a much longer growing season than Siberia. Also, it has soil that would make any agronomist salivate! It has nice, black soil due to a rich humus content. It was too far south to suffer from continental glaciation - hence the fields are free from rocks! No picturesque stone fences such as Robert Frost might write about. Just fields, fields,
and more fields! During Soviet times, the communes set aside some plots for evergreen forests as a source for local timber. The rural dwellers enjoy going into the woods to collect mushrooms and berries, which they string up and dry strands of these "vitamins from the wilds" during the winter months.
I'm pretty sure the original residents enjoyed their relatively warm weather and long growing seasons, throughout time. At the same time, when you're sitting on some property thatis pretty close to The Garden of Eden, or Paradise, they've had to pay for their prosperity by being periodically invaded,
There's a young man in the Slavic Pentecostal Church near us who is a genetic testament to The Ukraine's history of invasion. His blonde hair speaks to the Norsemen who followed the rivers down to their area. His truly Asian eyes speak of Rapes during the invasions of Ghengus Khan. His Slavic Christianity reflects the Orthodox monks coming north from Greece, overlain by a fundamentalist Chicago-trained Protestant missionary.
You could say that the Ukraine is at at a Crossroads of the Continent - a window to the European World. It's too bad that some folks can't just let them be themselves!
Well said. True patriots aren’t afraid to confront our faults and try to fix what needs fixing. Even if it’s not politically expedient.
Deny that you're an Evangelical all you want. Still, loving AOC is the sugar that watching old men decide borders and primp in front of mobs tolerable in an age and country that allows them to foul the media. AND: The press is on it's last legs because soulless "Good Businessmen" put it there, ...There ,I can ramble too.
Thank you.
Too true to be funny, actually. Thank you Garrison
A great piece, Garrison. And I don't see a single comment with which I disagree.
But allow me a few comments.
Reality wins out sooner or later. It might take a long time and sometimes it is hard to predict when, but at some point, reality will be faced.
Putin is head of a country whose economy is in decline and who cannot afford the big army which he has and which he needs to invade his neighbors. He does have nuclear bombs but if he uses them, that might result in his death. Putin wants what Saddam Hussein wanted -- that is to stay alive and stay in power plus become a modern-day czar ruling a czarist empire. There is not a retirement plan for Putin just like there was not a retirement plan for Stalin. Retirement for Putin would be hazardous to his health.
President Kelensky shows how much difference one person can make. With someone else as President, Putin might well have attacked, and the Ukrainians might have surrended and let it go at that. But Kelensky stepped forward and gave leadership to the feelings of the Ukrainian people and started handing out rifles and here we are. The Russian army is bogged down.
The Democrats in this country need a Kelensky. A good communicator who can step forward and give a positive explanation of what they believe and support. Too often when the right wing propaganda machine starts going, the Democrats in this country head for the hills or become mute.
I have a lot of respect for real, genuine evangelicals. Unfortunately, religion and politics nowadays is populated by a good many con men and grifters. It always pays to have a good BS detector.
Best wishes Garrison and best wishes to one an all.
Excellent piece
Your life of privilege has taught you nothing.
You mean he's a traitor to his class?
I'll compare my pre-privilege years to yours anytime you like, big boy.
Way to go, Great, Revered Host! I could be wrong, but it seems to me that many of our Public Heroes have "Rags to Riches" origin stories.
If you're born at the top, where do you go from there? Here in New York State, "Rockefeller" is a common governor's last name, thanks to rich papa John D. and Standard Oil Company. The Rockefeller leaders did well enough, for the most part. One of them, Nelson A, spent some time in Tibet. As a result, we have state capitol office buildings that look like Lhasa. They're definitely extraordinary in terms of general state capitol architectural complexes. Nelson was also responsible for improving the quality of rural highways, with the intent of enabling New York State dairy products to flow freely into New York City and environs. As far as I'm aware, the Rockefeller "dynasty" served New York State residents well. Silver-Spoon kids can be respectable.
On the other hand, what if you're born with a series of social roadblocks challenging you? The fact that it takes more grit and persistence to get ahead sometimes results in rising much higher than anyone would have expected of "someone in your class.". There's Jim Thorpe, a Sauk and Fox Native American, won the decathlon and pentathlon gold medals at the 1912 Olympics. Who would have expected a backwoods Pennsylvania boy to do that? Wilma Rudolph overcame polio to win races at the 1960 Olympics. Sammy Davis Junior, was an African American with an overstressed heart due to his childhood dancing in his father's vaudeville act. He went on to become a mainstream actor and comedian despite facing severe prejudices. You can read about it in his autobiography, "Yes, I Can!" Harry Bellefonte was born in Harlem, of Jamaican ancestry, with a chef and a housekeeper as parents. He grew up in Jamaica, served in World War II, and was working as a janitor's assistant when he received 2 tickets to see the American Negro Theater. His ambition carried him on from there. (Wikipedia)
The list goes on. Childhoods spent in relative poverty can act as significant motivators. Our Talented Host's autobiography is rich with the possible "advantages" of growing up impecuniously! Personally, as a librarian, I was especially impressed wit the distance he would ride his bicycle to visit the Minneapolis Public Library!
Listening to his anecdotes can be a great advertisement for "The advantages of growing up poor!" I can still picture him, in his hand-me-down shirt with darts in it and pants with a zipper on the left side, trying to make jokes with his friends in the school lunchroom. "What do you say when you're wearing your sister's out-grown clothes?" Many of us have never been in a similar situation. Necessity, though, surely helped him to find social acceptance through humor!
To me, Our Humorous Host is a great spokesperson for breaking down barriers caused by poverty, or educational or social class. Long Live His Tales, and Long Live the Author!
I usually like your take on things. You sound like an old man here, set in his ways. Nationalism is the way, really? I've waited all of my life for the feminine to finally upturn what Patriarchy has destroyed. If we are to survive, maybe old white men could just put a pin in it for a while unless you chose to evolve. While so many of us have been in the back seat for decades, centuries, you were put in the back seat and your "visibility" cloak just can't conceal your need for disability visibility . All the worlds' a stage..................with some taking up more than their share
Oh my gosh. The 70s are still with us.
No, I am more progressive in my views than most and we are in the midst of a paradigm shift from control over to a more authentic way of being.. the only way to salvage whatever is left of anything worth living for. Like Nature for instance. I see the Left as cultish as the right. I don't join any group. For example,I didn't get the vaccine (instead I isolated)so the mentality of the group joiners is that I am now a Trump supporter, that pus from the bloated boil of patriarchy- I can't take enough showers, nor do I have enough advil. If we cannot listen but instead join those who believe EVERYTHING this particular group believes, waging war on the worst side, it promotes more war. I align up and down, not left/right. I don't love America, we are incredibly immature as a nation. I love life and seek to restore what is most precious to me.... this planet and the life contained and supported by it which is being destroyed while we argue. Guy behind me bought a house, cut down a 100 year old healthy mother tree because it might fall one day and hurt his precious plastic shed and he hung his american flag off the deck which I don't want to look at. Our ego needs some work. people are hurting and so many have NO voice while the folks who love the stage continue to hog it. where's my cane... BTW.... I watched your show for years and loved it.
"I love America" is nationalism? Really? I don't think I get your point.
This is a political comment, so I have to say that it sounds like you may be forgetting that you're talking here mostly to people who are likely to be voting on the same political side as you in general elections. I'm afraid that comments like yours can tend to nudge people to the right, politically. Fox News is betting on it--they love to talk about wokeness and AOC hating America. Let's face it, the nationalist authoritarians of the GO-QAnon-P have their sights set on conservative immigrants, whom Democrats thought they had in the bag. The rest of us, those who care about democracy, need to focus on winning elections to avoid something even worse than the disastrous Orangina 45 Administration.
Excellent article Garrison...as someone who has a few very close US friends I fret and worry daily over your countries travails and have done for decades. However as a friend of Larry Sanders, the elder brother of Bernie, who lives nearby me in Oxford, I can't help but be an AOC fan.
Even so I do concur with your sentiment that it wouldn't hurt her to once in a while convey her allegiance to the US although when you consider the constant death threats she has to endure its not too hard to imagine her reluctance...
I'm sure she is very grateful inside but often we are very hard on those that we love the most and as an old Socialist Democrat myself even though I love my country dearly and would fight an invader to the death for it's existence I'm deeply unhappy with what it has become under our clown Boris and the worst Government since imagination.
So I also get her reluctance to wear it on her sleeve as I don't for my country presently.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading Boomtown next year as it's being sent to my chum in San Fran for when we meet up in April 23 for our 3 week tour of all the major music recording studios down South, can't wait, despite it's ghastly political situation I still love the US of A !
Eveything about your columns was spot-on except for your AOC rant - what is it about old guys jealous of bright attractive young women? - speaking as an old 63-yrold dual-Canuck-US woman!
Yeah, I know. What is it? Whatever it is, it could be a good conversation.
A comment isn't the same as a rant. Mine was a commentt.
Je m'excuse, Monsieur - tu as raison.
Thank you for putting my thoughts into words, expressed with your usual eloquence.
Thank you for this. Truth.
Outstanding!